In an extreme step, IIIT Basara has sent home all the 5,000 engineering students of first, second and third years on grounds of indiscipline. The fourth year batch has not yet started.
After the engineering students left, only about 2,000 Inter students were left on the campus. The IIIT offers an integrated engineering course, which combines two-year Intermediate and four-year engineering courses.
According to students, the IIIT management has served notices on them on Wednesday asking them to leave the premises because they had been agitating since Tuesday morning, making it difficult to hold classes.
The students were protesting against collection fine for reporting late after the recent Sankranti vacation from January 13 to 20. The IIIT collected `100 for each day from the students who returned after January 20. The IIIT has collected up to `20 lakh in the form of fines from students during the last three years and the students were not even given receipts. “They should have given us receipts at least. They did not do it,” said a student who did not want to be quoted.
Officer on special duty B Narayana said the management had served notices on students in pursuance of instructions from the IIIT headquarters--Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, Hyderabad. “The University felt the students’ agitation amounted to indiscipline,” he said.